The expression of DNA sequences encoding heterologous polypeptides (i.e., polypeptides not normally expressed and secreted by a host organism) has advanced to a state of considerable sophistication. For example, it has been reported that various DNA sequences encoding pharmacologically desirable polypeptides [e.g., human growth hormone (1), human tissue plasminogen activator (2), various human interferons (6), urokinase (5), Factor VIII (4), and human serum albumin (3)] and industrially important enzymes [e.g., chymosin (7), alpha amylases (8), and alkaline proteases (9)] have been cloned and expressed in a number of different expression hosts. Such expression has been achieved by transforming prokaryotic organisms [e.g., E. coli (10) or B. subtilis (11)] or eukaryotic organisms [e.g., Saccharomyces cerevisiae (7), Kluyveromyces lactis (12) or Chinese Hamster Ovary cells (2)] with DNA sequences encoding the heterologous polypeptide.
Some polypeptides, when expressed in heterologous hosts, do not have the same level of biological activity as their naturally produced counterparts when expressed in various host organisms. For example, bovine chymosin has very low biological activity when expressed by E. coli (13) or S. cerevisiae (7). This reduced biological activity in E. coli is not due to the natural inability of E. coli to glycosylate the polypeptide since chymosin is not normally glycosylated (14). Such relative inactivity, both in E. coli and S. cerevisiae, however, appears to be primarily due to improper folding of the polypeptide chain as evidenced by the partial post expression activation of such expressed polypeptides by various procedures. In such procedures, expressed chymosin may be sequentially denatured and renatured in a number of ways to increase biological activity: e.g., treatment with urea (13), exposure to denaturing/renaturing pH (13) and denaturation and cleavage of disulfide bonds followed by renaturation and regeneration of covalent sulfur linkages (15). Such denaturation/renaturation procedures, however, are not highly efficient [e.g., 30% or less recovery of biological activity for rennin (13)], and add considerable time and expense in producing a biologically active polypeptide.
Other heterologous polypeptides are preferably expressed in higher eukaryotic hosts (e.g., mammalian cells). Such polypeptides are usually glycopolypeptides which require an expression host which can recognize and glycosylate certain amino acid sequences in the heterologous polypeptide. Such mammalian tissue culture systems, however, often do not secrete large amounts of heterologous polypeptides when compared with microbial systems. Moreover, such systems are technically difficult to maintain and consequently are expensive to operate.
Transformation and expression in a filamentous fungus involving complementation of aroD mutants of N. crassa lacking biosynthetic dehydroquinase has been reported (16). Since then, transformation based on complementation of glutamate dehydrogenase deficient N. crassa mutants has also been developed (17). In each case the dehydroquinase (ga2) and glutamate dehydrogenase (am) genes used for complementation were derived from N. crassa and therefore involved homologous expression. Other examples of homologous expression in filamentous fungi include the complementation of the auxotrophic markers trpC, (18) and argB (19) in A. nidulans and the transformation of A. nidulans to acetamide or acrylamide utilization by expression of the A. nidulans gene encoding acetamidase (20).
Expression of heterologous polypeptides in filamentous fungi has been limited to the transformation and expression of fungal and bacterial polypeptides. For example, A. nidulans, deficient in orotidine-5'-phosphate decarboxylase, has been transformed with a plasmid containing DNA sequences encoding the pyr4 gene derived from N. crassa (21,32). A. niger has also been transformed to utilize acetamide and acrylamide by expression of the gene encoding acetamidase derived from A. nidulans (22).
Examples of heterologous expression of bacterial polypeptides in filamentous fungi include the expression of a bacterial phosphotransferase in N. crassa (23) Dictyostellium discoideum (24) and Cephalosporium acremonium (25).
In each of these examples of homologous and heterologous fungal expression, the expressed polypeptides were maintained intracellularly in the filamentous fungi.
Accordingly, an object of the invention herein is to provide for the expression and secretion of heterologous polypeptides by and from filamentous fungi including vectors for transforming such fungi and processes for expressing and secreting such heterologous polypeptides.